Posts Tagged wedding photography in buckinghamshire
Sarah and James’ Wedding at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons
Posted by Paul in For Website, Weddings on December 22nd, 2009
Ah, once more we find ourselves in the most stunning of locations. Whichever way you look at it, Monsieur Blanc certainly knows how to run a venue.
Le Manoir is always a favourite of ours and this wedding was everything that this venue does so well. Admittedly, the weather was terrible (that cold, piercing damp that we do so well in this country at this time of year) but, with the possible exception of a few photos we couldn’t capture outside, it made little difference.
I hope Sarah and James had dreamed of a cosy, romantic wedding in one of the world’s most beautiful venues as this is exactly what they had. With an open fire roaring and spitting in the corner and the Christmas tree lights twinkling over their ceremony, this was a truly wonderful wedding.
And following that, there were 7 courses of undoubtedly the most delicious cuisine imaginable. But then, that’s what Le Manoir is all about. A total immersion of the senses into a world of tastes and smells and attention to detail.
Sarah and James picked their wedding venue well. And they deserved it. They and their family were absolutely lovely to work with and I think the pictures we’ve captured show a truly romantic day that they’ll all remember for a long time to come.
Ah, this has been a great season.
Cheers
P.
Christina and Richard’s Wedding at Le Manoir
Posted by Paul in For Website, Weddings on September 23rd, 2009
I could get used to this. Having venues like Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons (and the clients who book there) that is. There is definitely something about the place. Maybe it’s the whole chilled atmosphere or maybe it’s the stunning grounds. Maybe it’s just that it seems so familiar or that our clients who have booked this little pile in the Oxfordshire countryside always seem really lovely. Dunno. Either way, I love working there – which is just as well as we’ve been there fairly regularly this season!
We do seem to be blessed with cool, classy venues around us with Le Manoir, The Crazy Bear and Notley Abbey all within a 10 minute drive from where we’re based!
Anyway, I was up at Raymond Blanc’s little pad again last week for Christina and Richard’s wedding. And it was wonderful. The weather was great, the guests were great, the food was great (according to the guests – I nipped home for lunch as I don’t really like to photograph people eating – seems rude somehow), the gardens were stunning (again, according to the guests, many of whom appeared to be incredibly knowledgeable gardeners!) and the service, as always, was exemplary.
And this extends to the guys up at the Bat & Ball pub in nearby Cuddesdon which is where I met the bridal party first thing in the morning (it felt like dawn as it was a pretty early start!) and was immediately offered a cup of coffee by the landlady which was hugely welcome!
So all in all, a fantastic day full of beautiful moments, plenty of emotion and an awful lot of affection all shot against the familiar sandstone backdrop that is Le Manoir. Beautiful.
Let us know what you think
Cheers
P.
Elizabeth & Dave’s Wedding at Notley Abbey
Posted by Paul in For Website, Weddings on September 21st, 2009
Ah, a breath of Californian sunshine in the Buckinghamshire countryside. In September as well.
We spend a lot of time and effort keeping our website and blogs up to date (well, reasonably up to date) and it was great to know that it works – Elizabeth found us from her home in California through Google!
I knew this was going to be a great wedding the minute that we met Dave and Elizabeth at our studio and so it turned out to be. They were married at Penn St. Church and had there reception at Notley Abbey which is very close to us – and is utterly stunning.
The weather? Well, what can I say about the weather? Given our pretty dramatic summer, you’d be forgiven for thinking a couple from California were nuts for choosing an early autumn UK venue for their wedding! However, fortune favours the brave as they say and it couldn’t be more true. It was pretty funny to see a crowd of people used to very hot weather, sitting in an English church trying to keep cool by using the orders of service as makeshift fans!
I am not sure what our American guests made of it all (particularly the formality of an English wedding) but with two gorgeous (and very old) venues, glorious sunshine and a beautiful couple who could not be more in love, it was truly a wedding that Richard Curtis could write a film about! Stunning!
Claire & Iain’s Wedding at the Crazy Bear
Posted by Paul in For Website, Weddings on September 21st, 2009
Once again, our summer weather has been a bit of a talking point – and for all the wrong reasons. Let’s be honest here, we have experienced quite a range of conditions this year!
However, we are exceedingly fortunate in that our cameras can withstand pretty much any weather that is thrown at us – quite literally sometimes. Though that doesn’t always make it nice to be standing out in it!
One such wedding that we had the pleasure of photographing in torrential rain and thunderstorms earlier this year was at the Crazy Bear in Stadhampton. Now, to most brides and grooms this would appear to be an absolute disaster but to Claire and Iain (who are the ultimate chilled couple), it was quite the reverse – it simply added drama and excitement to the day! I love clients like that!
The Crazy Bear is one of the few venues where it is equally atmospheric inside as out and the Moroccan lounge felt welcoming and cozy as the heavens opened all around us. We did manage to squeeze in some of the family group shots outside – while dodging the downpours – but it made no difference to the day which was ultimately a huge celebration even with thunder growling away in the background!
I absolutely loved photographing this day!
Rachel & Bob’s Wedding
Posted by Paul in For Website on September 10th, 2009
And the whole village turned out. Or so it seemed.
This was a proper village affair as Bob & Rachel are one of the most popular couples I have ever had the pleasure to photograph. And, when you realise that their wedding fell on the same day as the Haddenham Real Ale Festival – an event of such magnitude that it typically results in the village and outlying area taking on the appearance of an apocryphal film where every man, woman and child has mysteriously and simultaneously disappeared, then it becomes clear just how popular they are! The crowd was huge!
I do love it when we get to work a proper local wedding – and this was almost the definition of such a term – as we know most of the guests which always makes it good fun! This was also a wonderfully family-orientated wedding with kids everywhere. We had to laugh as we spotted a crowd of small boys attempting – with a degree of success I believe – to break into a small, locked ornamental cage containing bags of sweets! I dunno. Kids these days huh? 
Let us know what you think,
Cheers
P.
Catharine and Jon
Posted by Paul in For Website, Pre-Wedding on June 28th, 2009
Ah, for the eagle-eyed out there, you may have spotted that we photographed Catharine and Jon’s engagement party last year – and we’re thrilled to say that we’re going to be photographing their wedding later this year.
There’s something particularly magical about photographing a couple’s pre-wedding images partly because it’s such an honour to be involved in the build-up to the big day but also because I think there’s a real emotion to the images we capture. And this seems especially evident in the pictures we captured from this session!
I’m not sure why, but you can really feel the excitement and romance between them both. And how nice is that?
Just brilliant.
And if this is just the pre-wedding session, you can only imagine the images we’ll capture on their wedding day in September. And I, for one, can’t wait!
Cheers
P.
Rachel and Philip’s Wedding at Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons
Posted by Paul in For Website, Weddings on May 29th, 2009
You know sometimes when you have to pinch yourself? Just a little pinch. Just to remind you that this is actually work? Well, this was one of those days.
I’m stood in the familiar surroundings of Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons, camera in hand. And I have the nicest group of people to photograph. Oh, and the sun is shining – at least momentarily.
This was Rachel and Philip’s gorgeous and intimate wedding at Raymond Blanc’s famous venue. And it was everything you could wish to photograph in a wedding. Except for a little rain. Actually, quite a lot of rain, but it didn’t seem to matter too much. Besides, pictures of kids with umbrellas always look fantastic!
Rachel was particularly insistent that we captured a lot of images of the younger members of the wedding party and that the images overall were relaxed and informal. Given our approach, I suspect that’s exactly why she chose us to take the photos in the first place!
I reckon I have fulfilled the brief and I had a fantastic time doing it – and I suspect that Rachel, Philip and all of their guests did too judging by what I saw unfold in front of my camera. We have loads of images of the kids running around (with and without umbrellas!), a chilled groom, a stunning bride and a newly-married couple looking, well, like they’re unbelievably in love!
Is there more you can ask from a wedding day? If there is, I am not sure I know what it would be! Except, just maybe, a little less rain. But hey, that’s just nitpicking.
Let us know what you think of the images.
Cheers
P.
Debbie & Kit’s Beautiful Day
Posted by Paul in For Website, Weddings on April 16th, 2009
An unbelievably beautiful day.
The first wedding proper of this year’s busy season and it was an absolutely stellar day! I still find it hugely flattering that we have a client list that is just full of people who are genuinely a pleasure to work with – and this couldn’t be more true of Debbie and Kit. And their wedding was to be everything you’d wish for out of the most romantic day of your life!
The way we approach our wedding packages is so that we can always cover the whole of the day, right through the build up and then into the ceremony itself and completing with the celebrations afterwards. This makes for a fantastic wedding album full of interesting moments and surprises. Admittedly, this particular day did kick off with the groom’s party not being, well, exactly where myself and Kelly, my ever patient assistant, had anticipated them to be (we eventually tracked them down in our regular haunt, The Little Italy Coffee Shop, for an impressive breakfast of caffeine ‘n’ carbs!) However, once this slight glitch had been ironed out – and the lads had been united with their wedding suits – we were on a roll.
After a very emotional (and very musical) ceremony, the celebrations moved to The Barn At Chilton which is one of those venues that simply takes your breath away – possibly quite literally during the winter months as its perched right on the top of the hills overlooking wide open expanses of Buckinghamshire countryside leaving it just a tad exposed. However, this day was as perfectly still and as calm as any August morning and the location was everything you could wish for (and the staff up there are fantastic which always makes our life so much easier!)
We stopped off on the way to photograph the bride and groom in Kit’s stylish… er…. van. Yup, once a surfer always a surfer (even Debbie’s shiny new surfboard was temporarily re-purposed as a somewhat unusual seating plan!) Kit had arranged for a red carpet for the bride though! Anyway, this all just addedto the really relaxed atmosphere – I did half expect to Debbie to dig out her ever-near acoustic guitar and we’d sit around and sing a song or two, but this didn’t happen until a little later! And the photos we captured are beautiful!
Finally, just as I thought the day couldn’t get any better, it quite simply did with the appearance of possibly the best wedding band I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to – awesome!
Cheers
P.
Debbie & Kit Pre-Wedding Session
Posted by Paul in For Website, Pre-Wedding on February 26th, 2009
Now I’m excited.
I’ve known Debbie for a few years now, having first photographed her for the CD Cover of the band she fronted – Tamarind Sun – so I was somewhat thrilled when she rang to ask if we’d consider photographing her & Kit’s wedding. Fantastic!
The weather on the day of the pre-wedding session could not have been more ideal (especially given it’s so early in the year) as it was beautifully sunny and warm. Well, it wasn’t frosty anyway. Maybe ‘warm’ is over-egging things a tad but you get my point.
So with the brief ‘we quite like black & white’ (something I always like to hear from a client as, frankly, so do I) we wandered off into the rural film set that is Haddenham. And just look at the shots! Admittedly, tinted images are not, technically, black & white but these images seemed to lend themselves to that beautiful feel you get from toned monochromes. Just gorgeous.
I think the two things that leap out at you when you see these images are the fact that we were having a really good time (we laughed a lot!) and that Debbie and Kit are really really lovely together.
Now I just can’t wait to photograph their big day. It’s going to be a ball!
Let us know what you think.
Cheers
P.
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